Elections Canada opens polling stations on Calgary post-secondary campuses

With the federal election fast approaching, students and staff at the University of Calgary are taking advantage of the schools early on-campus polling station.

Elections Canada has opened more than a 100 voting offices on post-secondary campuses across Canada and residents can visit any of these officers to register and vote in the federal election through Wednesday.

Any eligible Canadian can cast a vote on the campus locations with two pieces of identification, they do not need to be a student. The locations allow people to cast a vote for any riding in Canada so eligible voters can attend even if they are away from their home riding.

“With students, they can choose to vote either in the riding in which they normally live, or the riding they are living now while they are at school,” says Elections Canada spokesperson Leanne Nyrfa.

“Anyone who is on campus, or just wants to go and vote on campus that day, can do that.”

On-campus voting is happening now at Bow Valley College, SAIT, Mount Royal University and University of Calgary.

CityNews attended the polling station at University of Calgary on Monday and spoke to several students who said they may not have otherwise found the time to get out in vote with exam season in full swing.

One political analyst expects to see more young Canadians voting in the upcoming election.

“The mood across the population is that this is an election for our times, it’s very important,” says John Santos. “I think we should see voter turnout increase just because of all the concern around Donald Trump’s tariffs and that sort of thing.”

Advance voting at regular polls will kick off Friday and run through Apr. 21. More information on how to vote can be found here.